Delphi Complete Works of H. P. Lovecraft(767)

Damn’d daemons of despair.



Once, I think I half remember,

Ere the grey skies of November

Quench’d my youth’s aspiring ember,

Liv’d there such a thing as bliss;

Skies that now are dark were beaming,

Gold and azure, splendid seeming

Till I learn’d it all was dreaming —

Deadly drowsiness of Dis.



But the stream of Time, swift flowing,

Brings the torment of half-knowing —

Dimly rushing, blindly going

Past the never-trodden lea;

And the voyager, repining,

Sees the wicked death-fires shining,

Hears the wicked petrel’s whining

As he helpless drifts to sea.



Evil wings in ether beating;

Vultures at the spirit eating;

Things unseen forever fleeting

Black against the leering sky.

Ghastly shades of bygone gladness,

Clawing fiends of future sadness,

Mingle in a cloud of madness

Ever on the soul to lie.



Thus the living, lone and sobbing,

In the throes of anguish throbbing,

With the loathsome Furies robbing

Night and noon of peace and rest.

But beyond the groans and grating

Of abhorrent Life, is waiting

Sweet Oblivion, culminating

All the years of fruitless quest.





Revelation



In a vale of light and laughter,

Shining ‘neath the friendly sun,

Where fulfilment follow’d after

Ev’ry hope or dream begun;

Where an Aidenn gay and glorious,

Beckon’d down the winsome way;

There my soul, o’er pain victorious,

Laugh’d and lingered — yesterday.



Green and narrow was my valley,

Temper’d with a verdant shade;

Sun-deck’d brooklets musically

Sparkled thro’ each glorious glade;

And at night the stars serenely

Glow’d betwixt the boughs o’erhead,

While Astarte, calm and queenly,

Floods of fairy radiance shed.



There amid the tinted bowers,

Raptur’d with the opiate spell

Of the grasses, ferns, and flowers,

Poppy, phlox and pimpernel,

Long I lay, entranc’d and dreaming,

Pleas’d with Nature’s bounteous store,

Till I mark’d the shaded gleaming

Of the sky, and yearn’d for more.



Eagerly the branches tearing,

Clear’d I all the space above,

Till the bolder gaze, high faring,

Scann’d the naked skies of Jove;

Deeps unguess’d now shone before me,

Splendid beam’d the solar car;

Wings of fervid fancy bore me

Out beyond the farthest star.



Reaching, gasping, wishing, longing

For the pageant brought to sight,

Vain I watch’d the gold orbs thronging

Round celestial poles of light.

Madly on a moonbeam ladder

Heav’n’s abyss I sought to scale,

Ever wiser, ever sadder,

As the fruitless task would fail.



Then, with futile striving sated,

Veer’d my soul to earth again,

Well content that I was fated

For a fair, yet low domain;

Pleasing thoughts of glad tomorrows,

Like the blissful moments past,

Lull’d to rest my transient sorrows,

Still’d my godless greed at last.



But my downward glance, returning,

Shrank in fright from what it spy’d;

Slopes in hideous torment burning,

Terror in the brooklet’s tide:

For the dell, of shade denuded

By my desecrating hand,

‘Neath the bare sky blaz’d and brooded

As a lost, accursed land.





The House



’Tis a grove-circled dwelling

Set close to a hill,

Where the branches are telling

Strange legends of ill;

Over timbers so old

That they breathe of the dead,

Crawl the vines, green and cold,

By strange nourishment fed;

And no man knows the juices they suck from the depths of their dank slimy bed.



In the gardens are growing

Tall blossoms and fair,

Each pallid bloom throwing

Perfume on the air;

But the afternoon sun

With its shining red rays

Makes the picture loom dun

On the curious gaze,

And above the sween scent of the the blossoms rise odours of numberless days.



The rank grasses are waving

On terrace and lawn,

Dim memories sav’ring

Of things that have gone;

The stones of the walks

Are encrusted and wet,

And a strange spirit stalks

When the red sun has set,

And the soul of the watcher is fill’d with faint pictures he fain would forget.



It was in the hot Junetime

I stood by that scene,

When the gold rays of noontime

Beat bright on the green.

But I shiver’d with cold,

Groping feebly for light,

As a picture unroll’d —

And my age-spanning sight

Saw the time I had been there before flash like fulgury out of the night.





The City



It was golden and splendid,

That City of light;

A vision suspended

In deeps of the night;

A region of wonder and glory, whose temples were marble and white.



I remember the season